discussions of various issues by a homeschooling father

Monthly Archives: July 2012

While on our way home from a week of lectures in Indianapolis, IN, we stopped in Danville, IL, to see the Vermilion County Museum Complex. The Museum itself is a replica of the 1833 courthouse where Abraham Lincoln practiced law. Right next door is the 1855 Dr. William Fithian Home where Lincoln stayed whenever he was in town.

Fithian Home, built in 1855, in foreground.
Museum Center, opened in 2002 in background.

Visit the Vermilion County Museum Complex

The exterior of the Vermilion County Museum was designed to
resemble the old Vermilion County Courthouse of 1833.
The main building is located directly behind the Fithian Home,
which is a Lincoln Site on the National Register of Historic Places.

Traveling from I-74, take the Gilbert Street Exit North. Continue North over the Big Vermilion River bridge. The Museum will be about two blocks north of the river and past Main Street on your left.

We didn’t have time, but also in Danville is the Lamon House in historic Lincoln Park, the home of Lincoln’s law partner in Danville, which is open on Sunday afternoons during the summer season, and the Vermilion County War Museum, located in the old Carnegie Library Building at 307 N. Vermilion St.

If you love books, check out Home School Book Review ( http://homeschoolblogger.com/homeschoolbookreview/ ), a blog devoted to book reviews, primarily of children’s literature and books for teens/young adults, from a Biblical worldview by a homeschooling father. There are over 2,300 reviews that you can search through by title, author’s name, or categories, and a new review is added almost every day. Some of the books that were reviewed in June, 2012, include the following:

As I mentioned yesterday, BIBLICAL HOMESCHOOLING is as free, monthly e-mail newsletter of general interest, encouragement, and information for homeschooling Christians edited by Wayne S. Walker of Salem, a gospel preacher and homeschooling father of two boys.

The table of contents for the July, 2012 (Volume 14, Number 12) issue is as follows:

10. Your kids are less likely to meet up with kids like Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold (remember Columbine High School in Colorado?).

9. Hence, there are no metal detectors and uniformed security guards through which they must pass at the door.

8. Your child will miss the experience of being taken into the restroom by bullies and beaten up for his lunch money.

7. Students can pursue their own interests by studying things that will actually broaden their horizons rather than only things on the state proficiency tests.

6. There are no lockers where people have to wonder if guns or drugs are hidden.

5. Tons of unnecessary homework don’t ruin every evening’s plans.

4. Socialization and exposure to the evils of the “real world” are done at times and places which are under your control.

3. Children learn more easily in natural situations.

2. Family relationships will be better.

1. A child is too precious to waste.

(And this list doesn’t even cover things like being taught evolutionary theory as fact, immoral sex education including condom use, relativistic “values clarification,” how to get an abortion from Planned Parenthood without your parents’ permission or knowledge, and such like!)

In 1805, the Maryland General Assembly appointed a commission to raise money for a school lot and a fire engine for Rockville. The Rockville Academy was chartered and authorized to hire teachers in 1809. In 1812 and 1813, a number of lots were purchased between Adams Street and Jefferson Street, and construction of the original rectangular brick Federal style building was completed in 1813. The academy was one of two secondary schools in the county. Rockville Academy continued in the original building until 1890 when it was replaced by the present Queen Anne design style school. From 1917 to 1935, it housed the Rockville public elementary school for grades 1-3 and later, the Library Association. The building was vacant, deteriorated, and threatened with demolition when it was purchased and renovated for office use in 1980. The City of Rockville purchased the surrounding land with Project Open Space funds for a public park.